Officials: Beloit man tried to arrange sex with underage girl

JANESVILLE  A Beloit man appeared in jail court Friday afternoon at the Rock County Jail after he was arrested Thursday on a charge of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

Jonathan F. Lincoln, 32, of 828 Daffodil Lane, Beloit, was arrested at 4 p.m. Thursday by sheriff’s detectives and deputies and members of the Rock County Special Investigation Unit in the parking lot of Taco Bell on Milwaukee Road in Beloit, the release said.

According to the release: Lincoln thought he was meeting an 11-year-old girl after he received a text stating she was on her way. The text actually came from a Louisiana detective assigned to the case. When Lincoln pulled into the parking lot, detectives and deputies converged on his car and took him into custody without incident.

Detectives also obtained a search warrant for his vehicle and his Beloit Township home, where town of Beloit police officers assisted. Lincoln’s phone was seized during the search of his car, and his computer and accessories were seized during the search of his house, according to the news release.

The arrest is the culmination of activities that began Jan. 26 after a 39-year-old woman in Louisiana was on an Internet dating website and noticed a man messaging a girl she thought was younger than 13 years old, the release said.

This woman then created an account and posed as an 11-year-old and engaged Lincoln in a conversation over the website. Soon, they began exchanging text messages over their cell phones, and the conversation became sexual, the release said.

After learning Lincoln was from Beloit, the woman contacted her local police, who advised her to call police in Wisconsin. She contacted town of Beloit police and reported the incident. Town of Beloit police confirmed Lincoln lived in the township and requested help from sheriff’s office, the release said.

Sheriff’s office detectives started working the case Jan. 27. They contacted the Louisiana State Police, and a detective from that agency was assigned to the case. He contacted the female complainant in Louisiana and then began posing as the 11-year-old female. That’s what led Lincoln to believe the 11-year-old was from Wisconsin and why he set up the Feb. 2 meeting with her in Beloit, the release said.